The Wapiti fire started at the end of July by lightning. It’s now burned more than 110,000 acres and is just 4% contained.
Firefighters work to create protective lines around a wildfire, so the flames won’t cross them. Dan Dallas, commander for the Rocky Mountain Complex Incident Management Team explains containment is a perimeter of trenches and natural features that a fire can move beyond.
“Containing a fire, it's slightly loose, but as a generalization, that means there's been work to suppress the fire to the extent that we're confident that it is not going to escape,” said Dallas.
The Wapiti fire is in single-digit containment and there are still major resources dedicated to its suppression including securing the fire’s edge and protecting lives, structures, communities, natural and cultural resources.
Dallas says managers face a lot of variables in a fire and the main focus is to protect what people care about.
“There's multiple buckets, but the main one is people's houses, people's outbuildings, the infrastructure associated with population,” said Dallas.
The Incident Management Team reports it has, among other things, deployed more than 1,300 firefighters, eight miles of hand-dug fireline and 600,000 gallons of water.
